The Ben Mulroney Show - Mr. Carney goes to Washington/the worst job in Ottawa?

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

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BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It's Tuesday, October 7th. We hope everybody is having a great start to their Tuesday. Mr. Carney goes to Washington. This is, I believe, is at least his second trip to Washington to try to maintain, mitigate, improve our relationship with the American president. This after yesterday, all medium and heavy-duty trucks imported into the United States from Canada

will face a new 25% tariff rate starting on November 1st, according to the president. What do you think of the timing? It seems every time that Carney is set to go down or there's a big delegation down, that Trump comes up with a list of new things. Is this, do you think part of his negotiating tactic? I'm going to put a whole bunch of stuff on there so then when they want to, when they're talking about deals, while I can just take them off. Listen, he's a bad faith actor. We know that. He does not negotiate in good faith. He's not, he's not an honest broker. The guy on the other side table is he wants to, not only does he want to win, but he does not believe in the idea of a win-win. No. For him to win, you must lose. And so I don't, I don't envy our prime minister and his responsibility.

responsibility here. But he also did promise that he was the guy to make things better. And in fact, since he has been our prime minister on this one issue of tariffs, things have not improved. In fact, they have gone in the opposite direction. There's no doubt that there's nobody that he has negotiated with in his life. And he's done a lot of negotiations, a lot of business. Yeah. That is that is like Donald Trump. If he ran into them before, he probably just walked away saying, I can't do business with you. Yeah. But you have no choice in this regard. So here are some of the goals of our prime minister. He wants immediate relief on partial or partial rollback of the steel and aluminum tariffs.

He wants to avoid new tariffs. But the Americans need that as well. The aluminum situation there is crazy. They can't supply their own aluminum. It's going to take them a decade to get going. And also fundamentally what I believe is if his belief, let's assume Donald Trump gets exactly what he wants. and he brings every industry back to the United States and they are humming at full employment

and every industry that ever left comes home. What happens to his customers around the world? He loses him. We can't afford to buy the stuff that he's got. And so he better make sure that everything he makes, he can sell to Americans because nobody else around the world is going to be able to afford it.

If the net result of enriching America is the impoverishment of the rest of the world, good luck finding clients outside of the United States to buy your stuff. So I don't see how long-term this works for him, but I'm not an economist. Then again, neither is Donald Trump. No, he's not a lot of things.

I think while our prime minister is down there, he's also looking for a clear signal that Canada-U-S trade relations are stabilizing ahead of the Kuzma review. I hate that name. The hard work was done. under NAFTA. I call it NAFTA. Like, I'm sorry, and it's not just because it was my dad's baby. To me, it's, it's the same deal that, where they're updated. But Donald Trump

didn't want to call it NAFTA because he hated NAFTA. So we all had to change the name. I'm surprised he didn't put his own name in it. Yeah. Yeah. The Trump. Yeah. He also wants a tangible win to bring back to Canadian workers in political, especially amid the rising of political pressure from conservatives and premiers like Doug Ford. Now, let's talk about what our prime minister has all already given in a world where elbows were supposed

to be up. So he paused the digital services tax. He dropped some retaliatory tariffs. He increased defense spending and border spending. But that's some of that he said he was going to do. Our fentanyl czar has admitted

he's got nothing to do. That was a, I mean, that was a job with no idea to say what exactly he was going to do. But when he dropped the retaliatory tariffs without getting anything... Yeah, when he dropped the digital services tax. And now Trump's put new tariffs on vehicles. Yeah, and the new digital services tax as well. Meanwhile, Andrew Shearer, who is the House leader for the Conservatives,

was on the CBC with David Cochran. And listen, I've watched Andrew Shear a number of times and he's been on this show before. Sometimes he's good. Sometimes he's okay. Sometimes he's fine. Yesterday was the best he has ever been on television, defending the conservative position, ever. And I'm talking by a country mile. This was masterclass communication by the House leader.

Let's listen to just a snippet of the conversation with the CBC's David Cochran. Two terrorists of steel, aluminum, there's lumber, there's copper. But that doesn't explain. Countries like Mexico have actually seen an increase in their exports. and it also isn't what Mark Carney promised. And you're right, you're right, both things can be true. It can absolutely be the case that Mark Carney's failure to get a deal is a big part of the hardship-facing Canadians or the suffering the Canadians are going through.

And also true that keeping the production cap, keeping those Trudeau taxics, and keeping the industrial carbon tax are also killing jobs. So you're right, both of Carney's failures can be attributed to the hardship. That's not quite what I was saying, but I take your point. And it went on, I think it was about a six or seven-minute clip, and he was a, He was on message and on point for the whole thing. And look. And he twisted David Cochran around his service.

Yeah, he did. He did. And look, and David Cochran, there are days where I watch him and I see the bias that conservatives can't stand. There are other days where he is a fine referee and arbiter and does a great job at what he has to do. And yesterday I thought, you know, he may be started from a particular position. but he allowed Andrew Shear to say what he was going to have to say, didn't push back as sometimes happens. And I thought, I thought Cochran did a fine job, even though Shear had his way with him. And that is, that is central to the opposition that I think the conservatives are

bringing to bear on this government, which is they pulled a bait and switch in the minds of a lot of people. They, they won the election based on telling people a certain thing about what what they could deliver. And when they got into office, it's as if none of the words that got them elected mattered. The conservatives are positing that Canadians were sold a bill of goods. They were sold that this government, that this government under Mark Carney,

was the only path to prosperity for Canada. That was it. That was it. Pierre Poliyev tried to, I think, sell it. Life is going to be hard. We've got to get in there and we've got to make some choice. because Trudeau's government mucked stuff up to such a degree that there are going to be some hard choices that have to be made. That was not what was promised by this prime minister. And when he

got in there, and he's like, oh, well, Donald Trump is really hard to negotiate with. And nobody really is getting a deal for it. We weren't promised. We were not promised that Donald Trump was going to be harder to deal with than Mark Carney was going to be good at being prime minister. That's not what we were promised. And so they're holding him to his word. And in that clip, if you watch the whole thing, Andrew Shear essentially forced that narrative onto David Cochran. You have to hold him to his word. And his word was one thing during election. And what we are, according to the conservatives, what we are seeing now is something completely different. I think that was very, very good. Meanwhile, the pressure is on Mark Carney.

But the question is, is there a worse job in Ottawa right now than finance minister? Here is Conservative MP, Sandra Cobion, to Francois Philippe Champagne, our Minister of Finance. I really want you to answer my question. Why are you changing how you're presenting it rather than actually trying to balance the budget? I think Canadians are entitled to transparency in a frank discussion between you and I. I think your husband and your family and everyone in your riding is entitled. I thought to have more transparency to see the budgeting where their tax dollars are going to be used. I think this is about clarity.

Transparency is, I agree. Transparency is a good thing. But every single person in my writing does not get to rework their budget to see if it looks better at month end. The bottom line is the bottom line. If you don't have money, you don't have money. Why are you changing how you're presenting the budget instead of actually balancing it? So the bottom line is the bottom line. but I think you cannot be against giving more information to Canadians.

People want to know where their money is going. Is it for expenses or investment? And when he was asked, in the name of transparency and more information, will the deficit be near $100 billion, he did not say, I don't know how one works with the other, but that is the thankless job of being a liberal finance minister in the post-Trudeau era. Hey, what's the truth behind the numbers? Where's Canada's economy right now?

We'll talk about that next. Several forecasters are saying the deficit is tracking now towards a hundred billion. Is that way off base? Are they in the ballpark? Listen, you'll have to wait until November 4th for me to provide you with an update on the forecast. But what I would say is that, and I've seen recent comments, and I was reflecting on them, I mean, when you consider that Canada as the lowest debt to GDP ration in the G7, as the lowest deficit to GDP ratio in the G7,

that we are only one of two countries in the G7 with Germany to have a AAA credit rating, I would say the fiscal situation of Canada is solid. We have the means of our ambition. That's why we say we need to do generational investments. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. Look, I'm not an expert, but I'm a Canadian, and I've been listening to I've been listening to

liberal officials and specifically liberal finance ministers for over a decade speak in very similar terms to what we just heard from that from François-Filippe Champagne always reverting to comparing us to our fiscal position to other G7

countries and always defaulting back to our debt to GDP ratio. Something I never heard prior to this liberal government and its previous incarnation under Justin Trudeau and not telling us having to wait until November to hear what the deficits going to be. I mean, I remember when they were supposed to be modest deficits for just a few short years and then we were going to get back into the black and it feels like a lifetime ago

since we were in the black. To talk about that and so much more, we're joined by Ian Lee, Associate Professor at the Sprott School of Business. Professor, thank you so much for being here. my pleasure my pleasure bet you're you're talking about very important issues that we should be talking about yeah uh so so you you hear that i mean i heard some pretty uh i thought fair questions uh not gotcha it wasn't gotcha questions from for the conservatives and committee uh yesterday these were pretty um direct and i thought fair questions to ask of uh of our finance minister uh yesterday

what did you what did you think First, I agree with you. Yes, it is a very fair question. It's a fair question because there are very serious people who are suggesting that our deficit as we speak at this moment is much higher than what the government has claimed it is. For example, the C.D. Howe Research Institute in Toronto, which is a very respected research think tank. It's been around for years. And just as a sidebar, there's a whole bunch of people that are there now who just recently retired in the last couple of years from senior levels at finance can. Canada and the Bank Canada. Some really heavyweight economists are now they've retired and gone to Toronto and they work at the CDL. They've estimated that the real deficit right now is more like $90 to $95 billion. The PBO just last week estimated it's in the 60s. So both numbers are way above what the government is saying. So it's not only a fair question, but it suggests strongly that the reality is much worse than Mr. Champine as saying. I just want to get one more

A quick point out. Absolutely. Because it drives me crazy what they're doing. John Pines and the government are kept using this net debt ratio. And I argue it is dishonest. Okay. Tell me why. Okay.

Because this is what you're talking about, we've been hearing these, they dip duck and dodge. Any time someone ask them a direct question, they point to all these other metrics. And they've been doing that since the Trudeau era. And this is a continuation of that. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yes. So what they're doing and economists and statisticians and the OECD and, you know, those kinds of organizations that measure this, they use gross debt because you have to pay back your total debt. When you go delinquents on a loan at the bank, you can't say, well, you know, I'm only going to pay back part of it because, you know, my net debt, if you look at the value of my motorcycle and my car and my house, that kind of brings down the value of my debt.

it doesn't. Your debt is your debt. I mean, if you owe $100,000, you'll $100,000, no matter what your assets are. Okay, hold on. Listen, I don't want to be accused of just a punch in at these guys. What I've heard, I've heard from enough people that, you know, comparing, uh, the sort of the, the, the, the, the financial behavior of a government, uh, to, to, to a household is never fair, right? I, I, I, I, by the way, I'm very aware of that argument, uh, for years, but I, on the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I disagree because it suggests in tacitly what they're saying in the lines is, look, we're not really subject to, you know, scarcity. We're not subject to, you know, if you owe a lot of debt, there's going to be bad

consequences. Can governments go bankrupt? No, they cannot. Literally, under the Bankruptcy Act, federal and provincial governments are, cannot declare bankruptcy. So from a legal, technical point of view, that's correct. But to suggest, they're doing. Oh, well, you can't compare to a household because, you know, we can't run into trouble. Well, you tell that to Argentina. You tell that to Cuba or Venezuela or other basket case countries around. That is not true. France right now is in a crisis, and they are in a serious economic crisis because they cannot pay their bills. They can't even get a budget agreed. So very quickly, Ben, I want to get this out. He keeps saying we're one of the lowest debt to GDP.

we are, I just look it up. The IMF says we're a hundred and twelve percent. That's putting us in the same range as France. Yeah. And France is not somebody we should be admiring right now. I love, I love France, by the way. I love Paris. But I'm talking about their economic policy. So they're using bogus metrics to say everything is hunky-dory. The PPO, I think, is much closer to reality, as is the C.D. How analysis, which are saying our finances are great. Yeah. They're in bad shape. So what happens, right? We get a budget's coming next month, right? And what happens when we finally, because it's been over 18 months since we've had a budget. That's crazy, right? But it's circumstances and whatever, and they've turned over and government. I get it.

And they've made this decision. What happens to it, when those numbers are finally unveiled, what are some of the economic knock-on effects of learning about how bad, our finances are. Because I think we can agree they're not going to be good, right? Yeah. So talk to me about what happens the day after the budget. I am so glad you asked that question because I have this debate. Believe me, I've lived in Ottawa all my life. And I

know people in the downtown, you know, senior public servants, retired senior. And there's this sort of idea that, you know, we're not sub-governments. They're not subject, especially not Canada. They're not subject to, you know, bad consequences. I strongly disagree. There's two consequences. Let's say they run the debt. Let's say the deficit, I believe,

is around 95 or 100 billion right now. because I accept the CDL. I accept, you know, those, those analyses. And let's say that they announced this huge increase in spending for defense and borders and, and the tax cut and so on and so forth. And the deficit, the new deficit on the budget night is announced it closer to $200 billion. I'm going to suggest strongly to you, the consequence number one will be that the markets because they're independent of parliament, they're independent of the media, they're independent of the liberal party, they can do whatever they want. Number one, I think that they will drive down the Canadian dollar. And I mean, I don't mean by a half a penny. And why that hurts us badly is because

we import one third of the totality of our GDP. Well, if the dollar goes down significantly, that means our imported goods goes up because we're paying. Most of imported goods are priced in USDA. So that means our, we'll go up. And secondly, the second consequence I'm worried about is the problem that Mr. Martin had when he went down to Wall Street in 1995 to the bond market boys and said, hey, I need a lot more money. They said, hey, we want to tell you something. We're not going to buy your bonds because we don't trust you anymore. We don't have confidence in you.

He went back, of course, to the prime minister, Mr. Kretchen, and they announced the largest downsizing in history. So the market, the bond markets can rebel by saying, we're going to demand a very significant increase and interest on your bonds that you float, pay for the deficit. And secondly, they can drive down the dollar, which will hurt all of us.

So these are very real consequences that do happen to countries that are in trouble financially. Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is, uh, so this, this could be really concerning. Yes. So, so, so what, we, look, I got to, I got to say goodbye in about 30 seconds, but high, high level stuff here. What are, what are three things we should be paying attention to, or give me two things that we should be paying attention to come budget time?

Like, what are numbers that they're going to matter besides the number, the size of the debt, a debt the deficit um the three things i'm looking for are they going to do serious downsizing not not wind addressing serious downsizing in the public service to save money two are they going to announce asset sales and that to me means two things are they going to put the pipeline up for sale because it's worth a lot of money maybe 30 billion and are they going to announce the airports of canada they're going to put up for sale but they were almost privatized yeah someone that you know very well and i strongly supported at the time was the sale of the airports because yeah i'm not being partisan. Europe has successfully

privatized the airports. I go to Europe a lot. The airports over there doing just fine. Professor, we got to leave it there. Thank you, my friend. Hey, up next, will I learn something new about my dad? The author of a new book on Canada's Prime Ministers joins us next. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've

been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be politics conflict uncertainty it's a lot to carry and for many men there's this expectation to stay calm stay in control and not talk about how it's affecting you but the truth is you're allowed to feel overwhelmed you're allowed to say i'm not okay right now and trust me i have been there whether it's the state of the world stress at home or just feeling like you've got to have it all together and have all the answers you don't have to hold it in better help is here to help with the world's largest network of licensed therapists they've already supported over

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Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.C.A. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Canada is 158 years old. We do not know nearly as much about our history as we should, which is one of the reasons we enjoy our guest, Craig Baird from Canadian History X, who likes to share stories with us from his podcast every week. But in the 158 years of this country, we've had 24 prime ministers, Mark Carney being the 24th, Sir John A being the first, and all the other men in between, men plus one woman in Kim Campbell. And our next guest has written a rather ambitious book because it's called the prime ministers.

And J.D.M. Stewart, who is a writer, historian, teacher and public speaker, has aims to present all. Canadian prime ministers from Sir John A through Mark Carney in a way that connects their policies, personalities, and their lasting reputation against the context of time, not contemporary standards. This is one heck of an ambitious book, my friend. Welcome back. Great to be here, Ben. Thanks for having me on the show. Is it 24 prime ministers, 24 chapters? Well, I've actually condensed some of the shorter serving prime ministers into a single chapter, for example.

So Kim Campbell gets a paragraph. Well, I gave her a single chapter all on her own, actually, because she was our only female prime minister, so I gave her her own special spot. Okay, great. So, okay, so, but what sort of research do you do for something like this? Because it's not a full biography of a prime minister, but what, does it talk to me about your approach? Yeah, so I spent a lot of time looking at old newspapers and magazines because I wanted to get a flavor of what was happening at the Times. And then, you know, I went through the various numerous books that have been published on prime ministers previous to that. But I wanted to get a lot of history on the run.

So you look, that's looking at newspapers and magazines is the best place to do that. Okay, well, let's go through some of them, the prime ministers that have been in the news for various reasons over the past few years. Sir John A, obviously our first prime minister. I don't think Canada is around today. We're not for the vision of Sir John A. Was he perfect? Absolutely not. Was he flawed? A hundred percent. Was he a great prime minister? I tend to think so. What is your assessment? And I don't want to give too much away from the book, but what can you tell us about him that you want to share a little bit of today? Yeah. Well, it's one of the reasons I wrote the book is when in the early 2020s, when or even before that, when McDonald was being reevaluated and people were egregiously tearing down statues.

I thought, we need to have something that re-evaluate the prime ministers and looks at them in their context, but also looked at what's happening to them decades or centuries later. So McDonald, I addressed the statute issue, and I look at the history. And actually in the whole book, I look at the history of the prime ministers, but also how they echo through time and in various places. So the McDonald issue is a big one because of the statues. I'll look at Lester B. Pearson and the flag and how that has echoed in through. the year. So the prime ministers are looked at both for their time in office and then how they've

become a part of our cultural conversation, if you will. So with a guy like Sir John A, did you spend, did you spend time on, you know, the residential school system that was founded under him, but also perhaps like why it was founded? What, what the reasoning behind it back then? Because obviously today, we think of the residential school system in a very particular way. There's no way that's what they were thinking back then. I don't know what they were thinking. but there's no way that their designs for the residential school system were what we now believe it was. Right. Well, I'm glad you brought up residential schools, which leads me to talk about indigenous policy in a wider range.

Because in my book, I look at all the prime ministers and how did they handle the indigenous file? So not just residential schools, but other things about treaty making, even when your father was prime minister and he held two, first ministers conferences, trying to deal with self-government and, um, and indigenous issues. So a lot of people don't realize that all of our prime ministers from McDonald to Carney have been dealing with the indigenous file. And so this is the first book that brings that to the table. Tell us something we don't know about Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Well, that, you know, it depends who you are, because if you're someone who follows politics really closely, you might have a really good understanding of Pierre Trudeau's history. What I'm trying

to do is for the people who kind of forgot things about Pierre Trudeau, maybe they forgot something about the October crisis and the issues he had to deal with there. Maybe they forgot about the Official Languages Act from 1969. So this is really a book that is going to allow people to brush up on their Canadian history and realize, oh, I didn't realize that this is what happened during the Trudeau years or the Lester B. Pearson time. Okay, what about the Mulroney era? What do I need to know about good old dad? Well, I was saying to the producer before I came on the show,

I said it'd be pretty hard to tell the son of a prime minister something that he didn't know about his own dad. So I'm going to say that that's probably the case. But I think what's interesting about the Mulrooney years is just the, it was a very tumultuous time in Canadian history. and I think like all prime ministers, Brian Mulroney was giving his best effort to keep the country together

and it was tough, but all prime ministers are doing the best that they can. People who think that, oh, this guy tried to ruin the country or this guy tried to take us down the bad path. I don't think we understand how power works and what prime ministers are trying to do. Okay, but it's interesting that you bring that up then

because my next question was going to be, as we get closer to the present so that value of recontextualizing is diminished right so there are people who today truly believe that a lot of the policies that were initiated by the Trudeau government were in fact or have in fact led to the weakening of confederation and the weakening of our social cohesion and our weakening of having a national identity now that 30 years from now that may not be the case but But in the here and now, that is something that a lot of Canadians believe there's real, still anger towards him in the way that there has been anger about previous prime ministers. So what do you do about that in your book? Well, I think it's a great point you raised because a lot of people, when the Mulroney years came to an end, they thought that they were the terrible years of Canadian history. And then Brian Mulrooney's policies have been reassessed and seem to be actually quite forward thinking. So whether that happens with Justin Trudeau, that remains to be seen. And the Justin Trudeau chapter was one of the more difficult ones to write

because it's still too early to have the most reasonable assessment of his time and office. But I've made my attempts. And I don't know what history is going to say about Justin Trudeau. I think the jury really is still out on the Trudeau years. And 30 years from now, we'll be having a different conversation about his legacy. And you have a, I mean, you take time in the book to write about Mark Carney? Yes, yes, Mark Carney. Okay, but hold on.

That was the beginning of the question because there, what do you say about a man who just got into office who, for a great many people, we're learning about him in real time. And what this, we haven't even seen a budget yet from this government. And so what are you bringing to the table about? And it's a good faith question. I'm not addressing, I'm not ascribing a value pro or con to Mark Carney. But what do you do for this man who, for a great many people? We just don't know yet. That's right.

So it's early. But, you know, it's interesting because with Mark Carney, you can, I wrote about his beginning foreign trips where instead of going to Washington, he went to London and Paris. And this was all about the changing moment in Canadian history right now. where our relationship with the United States is an extremely challenging one. And so I can show right off the bat how his trajectory started off differently from most of the other prime ministers whose first trip is always to Washington. So it's not like I'm making a big judgment on Carney is just to show, hey, here's what's different. The book actually ends with his first trip to Washington in May of 2025.

And, of course, now he's making his second trip. So I wouldn't say there's a judgment with Mark Carney, but it is, I start off the chapter by saying, hey, he's going to London, Paris. And actually, on his return trip, went to Acaloet, which also shows his preoccupation with the other part of our founding nationhood with indigenous people. So you can just see early, early trajectories with the first six months of his prime ministership. JDM Stewart, the book is The Prime Minister is available everywhere now. Thank you so much, my friend. All the best. Yep, my pleasure. Thanks, Ben. This fall on Flavor Network.

I'm actually on Top Chef Canada. It's super surreal being here. The search for Canada's Top Chef starts now. Let's go! Ten chefs are on a culinary quest. It tastes like fear, anxiety, all at the same time, but delicious. Only one will be called. ground.

It's tough. One of the hardest things I've ever done. Two minutes! Top Chef Canada. New season, October 14th on Flavor Network, stream on Stack TV.